pasta sauce, midday monday

today i found myself with four new bags of trader joes brown rice pasta and all the makings for some tasty pasta sauce. i’ve got on an episode of “the office” (the one about diwali), and my cousin’s baby who i’m babysitting is peacefully sitting in her chair with an alien toy. perfect time to start the sauce.

i chopped up two hot italian sausages that i grilled last night and put them over medium heat with about half a bell pepper chopped up. i bought the bell pepper the other night at 2am at walmart along with energy drinks and cigarettes and ate half of it in the car like an apple. i was walking through walmart, just feeling so repulsed by everything processed, and the inside of my mouth was hurting for no apparent reason so i couldn’t swing anything acidic like fruit, and somehow the bell pepper was calling to me… it was fresh and cleansing feeling.

in any case, i sprinkled on some salt, garlic powder, fennel seeds, and a dash of olive oil and let it cook until the bell peppers started to brown just a bit. then i dumped in a big old can of chopped stewed tomatoes and a small can of tomato paste and a little water and stirred it up. then i grabbed a bottle of red wine that was left from a party the other night and dumped that in…. probably about 1/2 a cup. and two or three dashes of balsamic vinegar. then i threw in some dried marjoram, some dried crushed red pepper, pepper, and more garlic powder. i brought it to a boil and now i’m just letting it simmer down slowly on low heat while i watch jim and andy take shots of jaeger on the office and write this.

i just picked some fresh basil and oregano from the garden and crushed it up and tossed it in there and then probably start the noodles. by the way, if you’re looking for gluten free noodles that rock, those ones i mentioned (trader joes brown rice) are the best — i’ve served them to many people who can’t even tell the difference. they make spaghetti, fusilli, and the tubes, whatever they’re called. totally love them.

so yeah… usually i have more vegetables on hand for a pasta sauce… like i’d probably typically do a mire poix to start with (carrots, onion, and celery sauteed together). but i think this is going to be really tasty anyway! sometimes i will take the stick blender to the sauce if i’m doing spaghetti because i think a smoother, thicker sauce usually works better for those types of noodles, but i think today i’ll leave it chunky and cook up the fusilli.

(30 minutes later…)

it was really tasty. the sauce was tangy, fruity, and spicy… kind of explody in the mouth, with chunks of sweetness in the tomatoes. mmmm.

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you won't find step by step recipes or lists here. instead, i focus on an intuitive, flexible, impromptu style of cooking. i describe roughly what i did to make each dish in order to inspire you to do the same with different ingredients in your own kitchen! i hope you enjoy the narrative and i hope it makes you want to experiment with your own foodtuition!